Modern transportation and military systems place great reliance on systems for tracking airborne or flying objects. In the context of transportation, air traffic control requires that the locations of aircraft be known, preferably with great precision. U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,009,554 and 7,180,443, issued Mar. 7, 2006 and Feb. 20, 2007, respectively, in the name of Mookerjee et al. describe tracking systems generally. In the context of military systems, there is a need to track missiles, both friendly and hostile, and which may be either unpowered (ballistic) or powered (boost). U.S. Pat. No. 7,026,980, issued Apr. 11, 2006 in the name of Mavroudakis et al. describes a system for identifying and tracking a target missile. A missile tracking system described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/879,538, filed Jul. 18, 2007 in the name of Luu et al. describes a system which estimates the location of a missile. Luu et al. make use of a “staging logic and early thrust termination” function for determining the boost or ballistic state, to improve the accuracy of their estimator. A system and method for tracking and engaging a hostile missile is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/868,554, filed Oct. 8, 2007 in the name of Luu, et al. This system and method also attempts to determine the boost or ballistic state of the missile being tracked. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/253,309, filed Oct. 19, 2005 in the name of Wolf, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,295,149, describes a system including a radar sensor, a hostile missile, an interceptor missile, a boost/ballistic determination arrangement, and an interceptor controller using the boost/ballistic determination to aid in interceptor guidance.
It will be clear that an accurate estimate of the location and path of a target missile to be engaged by an interceptor missile requires some knowledge of the boost and ballistic operating condition of the target missile. Improved and or alternative boost/ballistic estimating arrangements are desired.